Frugal Saturday...Dinner And A Movie!

In keeping with our attempts to further "frugalize" our life style, we're working towards cutting our food bill. In addition to economics it's important to maintain, if not improve the nutritional value of our meals as well. One of the ways we've found to fulfill both these goals is to cut back on our meat consumption.

One thing I do want to note is, cutting back does not mean cutting out. We all enjoy our meat too much for that! Last night Pa fixed dinner, and we all agreed he did a fine job of cutting back on the meat, while retaining nutritional value, and just as important, he didn't sacrifice taste!

He began by thawing two moderate size pork chops. In the past that would have been the beginning of a meal for two, but he was planning dinner for four, so he made some changes. Rather than just popping the two chops in a pan and frying them up, he cut the meat away from the bones, then into bite size pieces. He chopped up an onion,half a red bell pepper and minced some garlic, sauteing the vegetables in a small amount of olive oil til the onion was tender. Then he added the prepared meat. He quickly fried that then added rice he had cooked separately, fried it up a bit, seasoned it with a bit of soy sauce then let it warm through. (The only thing I would've done differently is I would've sauteed the dry rice a bit, then added water and let it all simmer together in the pan.)

Come dinner time we set out the Soy and Teriyaki sauces so everyone could further season their portions as desired. We all enjoyed this simple and frugal, yet quite tasty creation and we're looking forward to more variations as Pa and I take turns donning our thinking/chefs caps in the future!

After dinner we all gathered in the living room and settled in to watch this weeks family friendly film

Saturday Night At The Movies

Last nights feature was one I had watched before, but it had been so long that I really didn't remember any of the details, so it was rather like viewing it for the first time. The Bear was thoroughly enjoyed by all! It is a foreign film, but has the English language option which we utilized, rather than depending on the subtitles. Set in Canada in the late 1800s it is about an orphaned bear cub, the bear that takes him under his wing, and their struggles to survive, which includes dealing with some hunters. It is a fictional film, and includes some rather improbable situations, but is both educational and entertaining all the same. It also contains some pretty fantastic scenery! Younger children may be disturbed by a few of the scenes, especially if they are fond of dogs, so PG does seem a fair rating for this film. Older children may appreciate the note at the beginning of the film stating no animals were harmed in the making of the film. We all enjoyed this film so much we gave it a rare rating of 5 out of 5 possible.

Hope you all are having a fantastic weekend!